Palm Spring City News The old Kunming people have a special love for bait blocks, and the New Year's Festival is often snapped up, or fried or boiled or burned are mouth-watering and have a long aftertaste. There is a folk saying: "Yunnan Eighteen Monsters, CangCang is called bait block." Recently, the reporter came to the Guandu Bait Block Transmission Hall to listen to the bait block inheritors tell the story behind the Guandu Bait Block.
"When I was a child, I liked to follow the elders, learn their appearance and land bait together, and from time to time I would carry rice and firewood to Guandu Ancient Town to queue up. Talking about it now, it is still vividly remembered, and this memory really belongs to our old Guandu people. Yang Yong, head of the Guandu Bait Block Transmission Hall, told reporters that as a cultural business card of Guandu, no one wants its traditional pure handmade scooping skills to gradually disappear from the public eye in the changing times, and in January 2011, the Guandu Bait Block Training Hall was officially established in Kunming Guandu Ancient Town.
The early stage of the establishment of the museum was full of difficulties, whether it was to find equipment for ancient production or to explore traditional production techniques, it was a difficult difficulty to overcome. Fortunately, on this road of inheritance and continuation, Yang Yong and his party are not alone. Relying on the memories and oral accounts of the older generation of Guandu people in the nearby villages, they started from sawing wood and building boards, and gradually restored a complete set of ancient utensils for scooping bait blocks, and under the guidance of this group of guandu old craftsmen who were more than a year old, they explored a set of unique production techniques.
As soon as you enter the study hall, you will be greeted by this "behemoth", and what is more eye-catching is the eight ropes hanging from the beams of the room at the end of the utensils, which are so abrupt that they are incomprehensible. Yang Yong sold a guanzi here: "This is the 'soul' made of Guandu bait blocks." Listening to him say this, he was even more confused, so he had to continue to explore with doubts.
According to the traditional hand-made method, Guandu bait block production is very exquisite, completely using artificial scooping, manual kneading and other ancient methods. Yang Yong told reporters: "The traditional bait block is made by more than ten people to unite and cooperate, six to eight people step on the mound, one person pulls the mortar, two people knead, and the rest is responsible for kitchen work." "Good quality, fragrant, sticky balls of rice as the only raw material for Guandu bait, when making, you need to first soak in water, and then put into the wooden steamer for the first time to steam to six or seven mature, the second time with a fierce fire once steamed until cooked thoroughly, take out and put into the sand and gravel nest for scooping." At this point, the eight ropes mentioned above come in handy.
"These eight ropes are actually the fulcrum of the staff who step on the pillar to maintain the balance of the body, which not only ensures the safety of high-frequency stepping, but also uses it well to borrow power and do more with less." When Yang Yong said this, driven by "occupational diseases", he subconsciously walked to the dial. It turned out that stepping on the mortar and pulling the mortar needed to be carried out at the same time, and it was here that the "soul" of his so-called Guandu bait block was located. Only when the plucking and stepping are combined, the bait produced will be more sticky and more robust in taste. After the cooked rice is beaten into a dough paste, it is taken out and put on the board for kneading, kneaded into various shapes and placed in a cool place to be eaten, which is the Guandu bait block.
The good bait can be burned, boiled, fried, brineed, steamed, fried, with different flavors and long-term food. But compared to the small pot rice noodles, bridge rice noodles, and cool rice noodles that can be seen everywhere in the streets and alleys of Kunming... The circulation rate of bait blocks in the market is really "thin". Yang Yong told reporters that the bait block actually belongs to the "solar eclipse", and there is often a shortage of supply before and after the Spring Festival, and the rest of the days are off-season.
"We are now doing cultural export and production together, but in fact, culture and production are two different things and must be separated.
"As the saying goes, only mr. survival can talk about ideals." Yang Yong helplessly told reporters that in order to improve production efficiency, the Chuanxiguan was forced to introduce machines instead of artificial production, but there was always a pure land in his heart that was left to the bait for traditional craftsmanship. "Intangible cultural heritage cannot be continued by one person alone, and it must be passed on by everyone." He said that as a cultural carrier of Guandu, the bait block does not belong to anyone alone, but should belong to everyone here.
Pocket Spring City intern reporter: Zhang Die, Ma Mili
Editor-in-charge: Xu Wangge
Editor: Wu Chenping
Final Judge: Qian Hongbing